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Unsatisfactory BBEG Fight?
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<blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3027675" data-attributes="member: 1165"><p>Good reason not to use that rule <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> (the 20-20-20 rule)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No. In a vicious game with insta-death effects, he shouldn't confront the PCs on his own. He should have a "cabinet" of NPCs who travel with him.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ok... what do you mean by "stoop down"?</p><p></p><p>The chances of a villain, even higher level, of smashing the PCs on his own is very low. In real-life, group size matters. Therefore the main villain should not face the PCs on his own. Ever. Named henchmen with lots of barbarian levels but without the smarts or leadership ability to lead the villain group might face them on their own, however. (Same with the dragon the BBEG mind-controlled with the artifact that requires evil acts to use.) The barbarian and dragon are not the main villain, even if they happen to be higher level/CR than the main villain.</p><p></p><p>I'll give an example.</p><p></p><p>A while back I ran a Three Kingdoms campaign. The main villain was Dong Zhuo, a smart but exceeding evil warlord. He was 9th-level (the PCs ended at 8th-level).</p><p></p><p>Near the end they faced him, defeated his guards, but couldn't catch him.</p><p></p><p>On the last day they took down one of his named subgenerals (again, a group battle, again a 9th-level named villain, but he wasn't smart enough to be the leader) and shortly afterwards fought his champion (who was not that smart [Int 8] and fought the group by himself). The champion was 13th-level and had very high Defense. So he lost. That wasn't too surprising.</p><p></p><p>Designing BBEGs can be a pain. You can't design a BBEG... you actually need to design a BBE<strong><span style="color: red">G</span></strong>, where "G" stands for "Group". That's about four times as much work (assuming you're using four villains).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(Psi)SeveredHead, post: 3027675, member: 1165"] Good reason not to use that rule :) (the 20-20-20 rule) No. In a vicious game with insta-death effects, he shouldn't confront the PCs on his own. He should have a "cabinet" of NPCs who travel with him. Ok... what do you mean by "stoop down"? The chances of a villain, even higher level, of smashing the PCs on his own is very low. In real-life, group size matters. Therefore the main villain should not face the PCs on his own. Ever. Named henchmen with lots of barbarian levels but without the smarts or leadership ability to lead the villain group might face them on their own, however. (Same with the dragon the BBEG mind-controlled with the artifact that requires evil acts to use.) The barbarian and dragon are not the main villain, even if they happen to be higher level/CR than the main villain. I'll give an example. A while back I ran a Three Kingdoms campaign. The main villain was Dong Zhuo, a smart but exceeding evil warlord. He was 9th-level (the PCs ended at 8th-level). Near the end they faced him, defeated his guards, but couldn't catch him. On the last day they took down one of his named subgenerals (again, a group battle, again a 9th-level named villain, but he wasn't smart enough to be the leader) and shortly afterwards fought his champion (who was not that smart [Int 8] and fought the group by himself). The champion was 13th-level and had very high Defense. So he lost. That wasn't too surprising. Designing BBEGs can be a pain. You can't design a BBEG... you actually need to design a BBE[b][color=red]G[/color][/b], where "G" stands for "Group". That's about four times as much work (assuming you're using four villains). [/QUOTE]
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